Deaths caused by brain disease?

Four northeastern Indiana residents may have died from rare disorder.

Four northeastern Indiana residents may have died from rare disorder.

June 04, 2007

FORT WAYNE (AP) -- A rare degenerative brain disorder was suspected in the deaths of four people in northeastern Indiana during the past five months, health officials said. Allen County Health Commissioner Deborah McMahan said the deaths were suspected to have been caused by Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. After the third death, McMahan contacted the state health department and asked that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention be notified. Northeastern Indiana's hospitals serve about 1 million people, McMahan estimated. Based on CDC figures of fewer than 300 cases a year across the country, the Fort Wayne area might expect one death from the disease a year. Testing of brain tissue from two victims was planned as that is considered the only definitive way to determine whether a person had CJD. Health officials said the four deaths appear to be from classic CJD and not related to mad cow disease, which is linked to the rare variant CJD found in humans. Pam Jacquay of New Haven lost her 53-year-old husband, John, to the disease in March. She said that within weeks after Christmas he couldn't drive and soon forgot how to do common tasks such as dressing and shaving. "One minute he could do something and the next minute it made no sense to him. ... In the last week of his life he lost any ability to communicate with us at all," Jacquay said. "This just wasn't the way it was supposed to happen." She said she hoped health officials continue to investigate the reasons for the area's number of cases and that increased awareness will lead to treatment for what is now an incurable disease.